Household Bike Insurance - Is it worth it?

[pureantigravity]

Just renewed our car insurance and I was surprised to find out that it does not cover bikes stored inside or locked to a vehicle, all of that is covered only under the persons household policy.

And our household insurance policy is now also coming up for renewal. I asked for special coverage for our bikes because the bikes are normally only covered up to a max of $2000 (all equipment and accessories included - and then they also have a deductible of $500, so it's really $1,500 coverage all told).

It turns out that for someone living in our area, bike coverage is $5 per $100 of insurance.

Translate: for a $5,000 bike, there is an additional $250 per year premium.

... And that's with a $500 deductible. Also to note, changing the deductible does not have an impact on the rate. It's still approx $5 per $100 even with a $1,000 deductible.

So ... is it worth it? What to do - insure the full value of the bike, or perhaps insure just enough to get rolling again in the event of a theft?

What do the mags say?

[jm2e]

Shop around for different homeowners policies. Mine covers all personal belongings up to like $25k. Only things exempt are stuff like jewelry or collectables or fine china I think, so I've got a rider for my wife's wedding ring that costs me $75 a year. I called them 3 times to clarify the bike coverage before heading to Italy last summer. I let them know that I buy lots of stuff used and that the "new" value of the bike is way more than what I paid for it. They kept saying that "replacement value" equals the new price of all the parts I have on it. I just need some kind of paper trail to show that I actually had the stuff. Bikes are starting to get too expensive in my house to leave the question unanswered.
I've set my circle of riding friends on the same quest. Their insurance coverage varies widely.

[evdog]

I assume you are in Canada based on 'north of 49' for location. Up there most of the policies seem to require an additional rider for bikes. I've heard of $3 per $100 up to $9. When I lived in BC my insurance agent at Johnston Meier found me a policy that did not have a limitation on bikes, so they were just included with everything else under our $25k contents coverage. I don't recall if that was replacement value. I think that type of policy is pretty rare but if you have a good agent they might be able to find something for you.

I doubt I would have bought the extra rider had bikes been excluded from my policy. You can take a lot of steps to reduce risk of bike theft which reduces the value of insurance. And when you are like me and buy most of your bikes used it makes the cost even less worth while. Fortunately in the US it seems pretty easy to get policies that don't limit bikes. But you still have to treat it a bit like a catastrophic policy - I made two claims within two years for vehicle break in and hard tail theft, around $2k each and had my policy cancelled by State farm. From now on it will only be used for a major claim.

If your policy will cover up to $2k per bike I would forego the extra rider. Bikes drop in value so fast it doesn't take long before a $5k bike is only worth 1500 anyways. Save the cash and put it toward a new bike every few years.

[stuckathuntermtn]

A rider for bikes. I got. Hahahaha.




Sorry, no.

[pureantigravity]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Bike theft has exceeded car theft over here for a number of years. It has been a bad year for bike theft in the general area and I'm always reading on forums, the Whistler papers, etc, about the latest victim to them thieves. Even the friend who inspired me to start riding this year got his stolen out of the garage a few days after I bought my bike. As a result, "keep it inside and/or always in sight" has been my mantra.

I'm thinking that $5 per $100 it is too hefty a premium given that we live in a condo and have to bring the bike inside. If we get our bikes stolen, it will probably be along with every other valuable in sight.

So, perhaps an extra U-lock, the Kryptonite New York Model or a nasty chain will become part of the home storage scenario. ...

... but wait ...

Here I am about to post this and I am re-reading our old policy. Our insurance brokers staff seems to have missed something in our renewable policy called "Special Loyalty Endorsement". It states that the $2,000 bike limit does not apply to us. Which is really surprising that an insurance office would miss that and try to sell a policy that charges extra for a feature already included in our current policy.

Me thinks we will just renew and find a new broker office to deal with. Thanks again for the replies. I'll be the only "rider" the bike has or needs

[jamesp]

My insurance is like that, $1,500 or $2k or something covered, extra coverage costs too much to be worthwhile IMO.

Everyone else here is the same, only buddy who has enough insurance to cover his bike properly is a doctor but he gets some super-dooper insurance deal through his medical association.

[creaky fossil]

around the USA most insurance "agents" now are licensed as "producers" which gives them flexibility to be brokers as well as agents.

agent: works for a particular insurer, secures coverage from that insurer only. can be agent of several companies.
broker: works for the person seeking insurance. not beholden to any company.
producer: blend of the two, closer to broker in practice.

some insurance offices will pretend you can't get the coverage you seek, only because you can't get it from the company to which the office is ...uh... betrothed. these are agencies and not brokerages.

go to a broker-producer, not an agent-producer. broker will shop your risk to find coverage. coverage for things like bikes exists, if your agent says it doesn't, that's only because he/she either (1) can't place it with the company that owns him/her, or (2) is too lazy to look around.

[kidwoo]

Just ask yourself: could you really stand to lose those rotors?


I couldn't stand to see you lose those rotors. Do it for 'us'.

[pureantigravity]

I spray my carbon parts with silver paint so that people think I only have a fetish for chrome

[shirk]

Search on the nsmb.com forums. There are several threads about bike insurance locally here in North Van/Vancouver. I think TD had the best options from memory but I could wrong.

[xyz]

I considered insurance for my bike but after looking into the cost and deductible, I decided against it. I'm not much of an insurance guy though - I usually carry the absolute minimum house/car coverage with maximum deductibles. Insurance is a tax on people who cant do the math, but I'll save that rant...

I just never, ever, leave my bike unattended, turn my back on it etc. I also lock it with with one of those massive steel chains.

[creaky fossil]

Insurance is a tax on people who cant do the math, but I'll save that rant...

you should go on with it, I'd be interested in hearing it. mostly because all insurance is identical, right?

[D(C)]

I have TD Meloche Monnex tenant's insurance and am covered up to $6000 per bike included. From what I've read, they tend to be the best in town for bikes.

[xyz]

you should go on with it, I'd be interested in hearing it. mostly because all insurance is identical, right?

Actuaries are smart people. Insurance companies are very profitable businesses.

[jm2e]

Lets just clarify; maybe you want to be one of those guys who thinks insurance is for chumps and an uber high homeowners deductible (thus essentially only covering catastrophic claims) is the only "smart" plan. If that's the case, asking about bike insurance is as stupid as asking which soap burns your pee hole less when you're jerking it in the shower.
But lets say, you like the feel of being insured, and you like the idea of a low deductible to ease the pain when life gets shitty. Then perhaps looking around might make sense. Changing from a homeowners policy that doesn't cover your bikes, to a policy that does cover you bikes, well that just makes sense. If you've already decided to pay for something, you might as well figure out how to get the most bang for your buck.
I really like the idea that if my shit gets janked, I don't end up in a scenario where I'm looking for a new hobby because I can't justify the start up investment at this time.

[shirk]

I usually carry the absolute minimum house/car coverage with maximum deductibles. Insurance is a tax on people who cant do the math, but I'll save that rant...

LOL have fun with your minimum coverage if you have a catastrophic event. If you actually just have the min I'd wager you've not really done the math. Go through your home item by item and compare that to your policy. I'll bet your on the wrong side of the calculation.

As someone that has actually had to use his insurance for a major event it pays to read the fine print and actually have the coverage you need.

P.S if any Canadians have Intact insurance run out and change it. Like seriously don't walk run now the moment you read this and change it to any other coverage you can get.

[jamesp]

I used to have intact vehicle insurance when I lived in AB. Never had to make any claims. What's the story, they make life miserable if you try claim?

[creaky fossil]

Actuaries are smart people. Insurance companies are very profitable businesses.

A fine start, solid neutral footing.

Does the CDN insurance market let you supplement existing personal (home/car/boat) coverage with a floater policy or existing policy rider for personal property?

If you open a bike shop and have 20 sales floor/floor restock bikes, are you going to insure them? How about the tools? The space used for the shop? The employees?

If you've financed those 20 bikes, the tools, the space, and/or the startup costs, would that matter?

[RootSkier]

Back off creaky--xyz probably got a loan from pops so his own house isn't on the line.

[shirk]

I used to have intact vehicle insurance when I lived in AB. Never had to make any claims. What's the story, they make life miserable if you try claim?

Between the 45 units the owners were split up between 5-6 insurance companies. Intact was by far the worst for the owners to deal with, fought the most to get out of coverage, just made life hell for the people that had lost everything they own. We had little old ladies in their late 70's basically begging us to help the fight their insurance. The Board of the building had the worst time dealing with them. When you see how multiple companies treat people in a catastrophic loss it's easy to pick out the assholes.

[shirk]

A fine start, solid neutral footing.

Does the CDN insurance market let you supplement existing personal (home/car/boat) coverage with a floater policy or existing policy rider for personal property?

Yes you can add riders for pretty much anything and everything. Some companies are better at the individual personal property riders than others.

Our cover all our stuff under the household contents policy. We don't bother with specific riders. If we have a bike stolen we will not get it's true value we'll get the policy max for "bicycle". We're okay with that as we don't ride carbon bling machines. But we do ensure that we keep up with contents amount on the policy inline with the value of what we own. Estimated minimums by the insurance co is not going to properly cover a full loss of everything.

[creaky fossil]

if it's like the USA, you can have agents, brokers, producers who know only the main things they sell routinely and it's possible they (agent-broker-producer) are unaware of a way to get coverage for something, simply because they never place that coverage for anyone. insurers in prop/cas write all kinds of goofy coverage. the Q tends to be whether the coverage is so expensive, or the deductible so high, that it becomes a bad bargain in practice. I'd guess that's what xyz was talking about. I've seen personal property riders that wouldn't help someone who had expensive bikes, for the reason you said -- the insurer has a "bike" value flat, not one scaled to actual cost. those that scale to actual cost can be expensive. pete fagerlin's prophecy of "bikes as jewelry" hasn't reached prop/cas insurers yet.

[schuss]

If you work with producers based on your bike stable and security stuff, you can probably get a lower rate, just need someone interested in writing the business. As alluded to above, actuaries are smart people and you can insure anything, so insuring under something like a lloyd's contract made by a smart producer may be the best bet. I did my homeowners that way for a year or two due to the wiring (knob and tube), as someone had figured out that if it was going to burn, it would have already. Allstate caught on a year or two later and wrote the business no one else wanted for a small premium.

[xyz]

LOL have fun with your minimum coverage if you have a catastrophic event. If you actually just have the min I'd wager you've not really done the math. Go through your home item by item and compare that to your policy. I'll bet your on the wrong side of the calculation..

No. My minimum coverage is sufficient to cover 5 times the value of my contents. And that's not the math I'm talking about.

The point I'm making is this. I don't let fear of a very unlikely event govern the amount of insurance I buy. That is exactly what insurance companies count on and why they are so profitable. They've done the math and set the premiums accordingly, to maximize profits. My strategy is not to fill my life with expensive cars, carbon bling, Italian leather furniture or 80 inch tv's. The money I save not buying that crap is put towards an emergency cash fund that will replace my possessions if they get struck by lightening or whatever BS unlikely risk out there.

I still have insurance to cover fire, flooding etc but it's the absolute minimum coverage. I'm ok with this minimum. Some of the money I'm saving I use to invest in insurance companies. The capital growth and dividend stream feeds quite nicely into my emergency fund. The same goes for car insurance. I just get 3rd party liability coverage with the highest deductible. If I total my 8,000 dollar car and it's my fault - I'll just a write a check for a new 8,000 car. If I drove a 40,000 Audi my insurance rates would be higher and if I wrecked it my premiums would go even higher. No thanks.